Vindication
by EHWIES
Summary: Quinn breaks a little every time she runs in the bathroom with morning sickness and sees Rachel scrubbing herself clean of a slushy facial. T for language and themes. Post-Throwdown. R&R!


**Vindication**

She hates Rachel Berry because she makes tulips and rainbows out of every April shower that thunders her way. Quinn isn't a bully, she's _not_, but she's grown up in a household that preaches and preaches and never let her find herself for who she really was, and maybe she's selfish, but something inside her makes her want to crush the hope in Rachel Berry's sparkling eyes. She doesn't even really wish ill on Rachel. She'll admit it: every time she runs in the bathroom with morning sickness and sees Rachel scrubbing herself clean of a slushy facial, it breaks her a little to know that _she_ did that, at least by the law of consequence—because if it weren't for Quinn, Rachel's reputation wouldn't be half as tarnished; if it weren't for Quinn, Finn wouldn't be afraid to tell the jocks to lay off her; if it weren't for Quinn…

She's selfish, she knows that, but she hopes to God she's not cruel. Maybe she shouldn't pin anything on God anymore after she went and got herself pregnant via underage adultery, because _thou shalt not covet_ and she did a hell of a lot more than just _covet_ Puck. Quinn stays on as president of the celibacy club after the school finds out about her, though: if anything, she's made an example of herself (a statistic, she thinks sometimes with a sinking stomach and bile in her throat), and at the very least, other girls can learn from her story. (Except the celibacy club is just an excuse for the Cheerios to plot new ways to tease and torment their boyfriends, she reminds herself with a shudder: hell if she lets Rachel Berry and her innocence and her optimism rub off on her. Still, Quinn's determined to keep her post, all the way through her pregnancy and maybe in the years after, too.)

All her life, she's had too much to say and not enough freedom to say it. When she was a little girl, she used to look forward to those late nights when Mommy and Daddy were at the country club and her sister skipped out on babysitting to go to parties and get drunk and who knows what else—used to wait until the house was all empty, put on her mother's CDs, and just sing. Quinn was young, of course, and didn't understand half of what she was singing _about_, but she lived for those couple of nights a month when at least she could raise her voice without a scolding and—let go.

Quinn never lets go of anything anymore.

And she hates Rachel Berry, loathes Rachel Berry, because she's so damn naïve. All right, so Quinn's out of line for thinking herself important enough to judge—but there has to be some kind of injustice in the fact that the worst torture Rachel Berry has ever had to endure is slushie down her shirt and snide comments on her MySpace page. Rachel doesn't know what it's like to feel stifled; Rachel doesn't know what it's like to feel empty.

Rachel doesn't know what it's like to _want_ to feel empty—to resort to purging herself in any way she can of the shame. Quinn may still pray to God sometimes, but other times, she doubts that it's anything more than a distraction from the knowledge that she's definitely going to hell for what she's done—who she is. She's gorged herself on sin, and sometimes, she relishes that constant morning sickness because she just feels so stuffed to bursting all the time and needs to get rid of some of it—something has got to come out. If taking some sick pleasure in vomiting daily does it for her, well, there are worse things she could do.

There are worse things she has considered doing. Quinn remembers when she missed that first period and forced herself to take those pregnancy tests—three, because she couldn't believe it the first two times, because after going to the pharmacy for a pregnancy test three times in a row she just didn't have it in her to buy a fourth—and the sticks were all _blue_, and…

She didn't lie to Finn because she wanted to use him. She lied to Finn because she needed to believe that she could survive this for another eight months (another lifetime), and if she had to lose Finn by telling the truth—Quinn just _couldn't_ make it through that, not when her first overpowering instinct had been to get an abortion. Even then, she always felt so bloated on her wrongs, and she just wanted them out, the proof out, the baby _out_. She lied to Finn because, without him, she didn't think she could trust herself anymore.

For the next eight months, she remembers having thought, she'd never be able to truly be alone. And that terrified her. That still terrifies her.

There's a sickness inside her that says it's okay to bully and spy and sleep around, and Rachel Berry couldn't possibly understand what that's like. However it looks, Quinn isn't a vindictive bitch.

She _isn't_.


End file.
